Ancient Egypt has long held tremendous fascination
and symbolism for African Americans as a source of identification and pride.
Ancient Egyptian imagery appears in African American popular culture and religion,
and narratives of ancient Egyptian grandeur and glory hold a special resonance
for many African Americans. On any given day on Harlem’s bustling 125th Street,
for example, one might encounter a religious group called the Islamic Hebrew
Nubians who don "Pharaonic" robes and turbans and preach to pedestrians about
the lost tribes of Egypt, while young African Americans shop for clothing at
Nefertiti Fashions or marvel at the artifacts displayed in a store called Yaiqab's
Treasures of Egypt.

Although many African Americans seem to take Egypt’s
African heritage for granted, scholars have long debated the origins of ancient
Egyptian culture and society. Confronted with the archaeological remains of
an obviously impressive and advanced ancient culture in Africa, many 19th century
European scholars insisted that Egyptian civilization must have originated in
Europe or the Near East. This idea has been challenged by many subsequent researchers,
perhaps most influentially by Martin Bernal, whose Black Athena: The Afroasiatic
Roots of Classical Civilization, Vol. 1 (Rutgers University Press, 1989) triggered
numerous debates. Bernal not only rejected the idea that ancient Egypt was a
poor cousin to ancient Greece, as had often been proposed, he argued that in
fact, Greek civilization was massively indebted to African and Asian influences,
primarily to the Egyptians and Phoenicians. Recently, Bernal's thesis has received
strong support from unlikely quarters, from conservative political commentator
Richard Poe.

In Black Spark, White Fire: Did African Explorers
Civilize Ancient Europe? (Prima Publishing, 1999), Poe, an award-winning author,
follows historical and archaeological clues from southern Egypt as far north
as ancient Colchis, the modern nation of Georgia. He demonstrates that the
ancient Egyptians were a seafaring people, who traveled as far as southern
Russia and colonized parts of southern Europe, including Greece.

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Poe scrutinizes the words
of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus (450 BC), who observed that the Colchians
looked like the Egyptians (he described them as "melagchroes," which means "black-skinned,"
and "onlotriches," which means "woolly-haired") and, like them, practiced circumcision.
Poe discusses archeological evidence including Colchian linen, which, like Egyptian
linen, was woven on "a vertical two-beam loom, whose distinctive pyramid-shaped
weights have been found in abundance in Georgian archaeological sites."

In light of such evidence, Poe asks, "If the Egyptians
would sail 250 miles to buy pine wood in Byblos, and 900 miles to obtain gold,
incense, and exotic beads of Ethiopia, why would they not have sailed 560 miles
to Greece in whose markets all the riches of Europe could be found? Scholars
have never provided a satisfactory answer to this question." Poe draws our attention
to astonishing evidence of an Egyptian presence in ancient Greece, including
the Pyramid of Amphion.